


Elysium

by araliya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 06:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: He tried not to fall in love with him. He really did.





	Elysium

[Gravity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mULa8WxTa4) - Sara Bareilles

 

 **Elysium**  
PROPER NOUN  
 _(Greek Mythology)_  
1\. The place at the ends of the earth to which certain favoured heroes were conveyed by the gods after death.  
  
2\. A place or state of perfect happiness.

 

_(something always brings me back to you)_

 

He tried not to fall in love with him. He really did.

 

Chris  _knew_ , as soon as he saw that Cheshire-cat grin and those amber eyes. He knew that it was time to grab the trowel because if he didn’t build that wall, and build it quick, he’d be in over his head with no way of ever pulling himself out.

 

It didn’t work of course. His head was underwater before he could even lay the first brick.

 

The whole thing was sort of okay, in the beginning. There’s something kind of comforting about a crush, in it’s own, well,  _crushing_  way. It was something Chris could use to convince himself he wasn’t  _completely_  unfeeling- evidence that the embedded cynicism from growing up too fast hadn’t  _actually_  turned his heart to stone in the process.

 

(Though, Chris thought, having a stone heart probably would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.)

 

It was fine as long as Chris could keep him at a distance, as long as he stayed firmly on the other side of that wall. As long as the generous smiles, the musical laughs, the broken guitar strings and size-too-small t-shirts, stayed on the other side of that goddamned wall.

 

It would all be okay.

 

***

 

_(it never takes too long)_

 

And for a minute, it was. Well, as okay as it could have been when all Chris did was stop himself at two drinks so that his mouth didn’t betray him, and pretend that someone wasn’t digging a knife into his heart and  _twisting_  whenever someone mentioned the fucking girlfriend.

 

The  _fucking_  girlfriend. With her green eyes and bronze skin and pouty rosebud lips and raven black hair and soft curves and-

 

The fact that she was basically everything that Chris wasn’t, along with the fact that she was, well, a  _girl_.

 

Sometimes, it was all he could do not to go home and crawl into bed and  _cry_. But Chris hadn’t cried since his grandfather’s funeral and he sure as hell wasn’t going to break that record for some  _guy_.

 

***

 

_(set me free, leave me be)_

 

Darren wasn’t, of course, just some guy.

 

It turned out that the girlfriend hadn’t really been a girlfriend at all- not unless you counted a friendly accompaniment to a stuffy watch brand’s promo red carpet in 2009 as an  _actual_  date.

 

Thus it’s sort of unsurprising that Chris found himself pressed up against his trailer door with Darren’s tongue in his mouth, and he wasn’t even protesting.

 

Well his heart wasn’t, at least. Chris’ brain, on the other hand, refused to shut up on the matter, screaming _he’s just playing, this is just a game, Darren fucks anything that **moves** , you know that._

 

And all Chris’ heart thought was,  _I’ll take everything he’ll give me._

 

***

 

_(i don't want to fall another moment into your gravity)_

 

Darren surprised him because Darren Criss doesn’t do anything by halves.

 

He took a hammer to Chris’ wall, chipped and pried at it until it was rubble at their feet, until Chris could no longer look at Darren and deny the fact that he was it. Like, capital I, It. White picket fence, two-point-five kids and a cat and a dog, It.

 

Except things weren’t really white picket fences- they never really could be, not when Darren and Chris were who they were. In Hollywood, you’re straight unless you’re too gay to claim otherwise, and if you know what’s “best” for yourself, you jam those closet doors shut and padlock it for good measure.

 

It was just that Darren’s team threw away the key while they were at it.

 

At first it was heady and new- this fragile little thing that they kept a secret like giddy teenagers. Suddenly Chris’ life was a series of broken-breathed rendezvouses in locked trailers, the Scissor Sisters playing from tinny speakers, and the sleek shine of a Tesla in the rear-view mirror as he drove home in the dead of night.

 

And then it wasn’t so simple.

 

***

 

_(i never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love)_

 

They were still the same, he and Darren, even after all the lies and the forced smiles and the wind-up toy responses of  _yes, I’m straight_  and  _no, we’re just very good friends._

 

But those who didn’t know, suspected, and they were restricted to keeping a leash on it, to shutting it up in a velvet box- a velvet box that might as well have  _sung_  when it was opened.  

 

Chris tried to compare it to hiding away a precious jewel. Darren compared it to being caged.

 

***

 

_(you're everything I think I need here on the ground)_

 

In the end, they got their white picket fence.

 

Actually, it was Canadian red cedar, but those were just details when they got to take turns carrying each other across the threshold, with Cooper winding excitedly through their legs and threatening the mercifully intact state of Chris’ bones.

 

They were more often out of the house than in it, but when they  _were_  there together, Darren would lock their phones in the bread bin and bring out one of his guitars, and they’d sit and talk until the sun set over the Cali hills and Darren inevitably fell asleep in Chris’ lap.

 

They’d have dinner at one and coffee bourbons at three, and they’d regret it in the morning when they missed their call time, their alarms having been muffled by the wood of the bread bin.

 

Bumping hips at the bathroom counter, Chris would look into the mirror and see the two of them together, and not care- not care one single bit.

 

***

 

_(something always brings me back to you)_

 

When you look at it, they’re quite strong, really.

 

Darren does the heavy lifting, carries the burden of a thousand lies on his shoulders like Atlas and the heavens. Chris helps him bear the weight when Darren lets him, which isn’t always often enough to keep Chris from worrying. There are lies they have both told, so they share it.

 

Chris and Darren are each other’s muse, each other’s hamartia, each other’s unwavering fate.

 

They are each other’s Elysium.

 

_(it never takes too long)_


End file.
